When George W. Bush was fighting
hard for 36 days in the State of Florida to preserve his narrow 538
vote lead--and the 25 electoral votes that would make him the 43rd
President--his support from conservative America was as fierce as
is the growing opposition from the right today. The President is clueless
why 3 million or more votes that he needs to get re-elected may sit
out the Election of 2004 and allow John Forbes Kerry (if he prevails
at the Democratic National Convention) to become the 44th President
of the United States on November 2, 2004. Tragically, if that happens
the U.S. Senate--and control of the ideology of the federal courts--will
shift much farther to the left when the U.S. Senate falls back into
the hands of the Democrats. If that happens, the House of Representatives
will likely revert back to Democratic control in 2006. If the Senate
is recaptured by the Democrats, the rule of law in America will die
as our judicial system becomes an ironclad instrument for implementing
social justice that makes victims out of criminals and criminals out
of innocent American citizens.

To understand why conservative
America has lost faith in George W. Bush it is necessary to peel back
the layers of our history to 1802 and look at the reason why colonial
America lost faith in John Adams and the Federalist Party--the party
of George Washington. As the 18th century came to a close, the fledgling
American Republic found itself close to war with its ally, France.

In 1795, a year before Washington
left office, Thomas Pinckney negotiated a treaty with England (Jay's
Treaty) to settle border disputes, and another with Spain (The Treaty
of San Lorenzo) that gave the United States access to the Mississippi
through New Orleans. The French believed that Jay's Treaty implied
that America was once again becoming pro-British. France attempted
to extort a cash settlement from the United States for its assistance
in the Revolutionary War (known as the XYZ Affair). As a result, hostilities
flared. Shortly after John Adams was inaugurated as the nation's 2nd
president, pitched battles between the American and French fleets
commenced on the high seas. In 1798 Adams pushed Congress to enact
several repressive measures against American citizens of French extraction.
One of them was The Naturalization Act. Under that law, French immigrants
had to wait 14 years (rather than 7 years) before they could apply
for American citizenship. Another new law made it a crime to ridicule
or otherwise hold the President of the United States in contempt or
disrepute by criticizing his decisions. Because the repressive measures
violated the Bill of Rights, Adams was viewed by most Americans with
growing trepidation. Many of those colonial Americans had fought and
shed their blood for the liberty they so fervently cherished. Most
families in America lost loved ones in the Revolutionary War, so the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights had a special significance to
them (unlike Americans today who desecrate their flag and disrespect
the symbolism of the Stars and Stripes under the guise of freedom
as they attempt to destroy the republican form of government their
ancestors died to secure).

John Adams believed that French
radicalism would fracture the nation causing a second revolutionary
war--only this time, with the French. Congress passed the Aliens and
Sedition Act to stifle criticism of the presidency because of the
other repressive measures that had already been enacted. Anyone who
had ever read the Constitution knew that the laws being enacted by
the Adams Administration were unconstitutional. As men who had fought
the British to win liberty--and the right to free speech--were arrested,
those who were afraid to speak out nevertheless saw, firsthand, that
despots can be American as well as British.

The first victim of the Aliens
and Sedition Act was Matthew Lyon of Vermont. Lyon's "crime" was a
statement made in a letter published in a Vermont newspaper. Lyon
said that with the federal executive "...every consideration of the
public welfare is swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, and
unbound thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and self avarice."
Lyon was arrested and brought before Supreme Court Justice Patterson
where he was found guilty of sedition. He was sentenced to four months
in prison and fined $1,000. His property was auctioned off to pay
his fine. Not only was Lyon found guilty of sedition, so was the newspaper
publisher who printed his article. (So much for the 1st Amendment
and freedom of the press.) Liberty lasted eleven years before the
federal government violated the Constitution.

Thomas Cooper was the second man
convicted of violating the Alien and Sedition Act. His "crime" was
speaking out in defense of another man, Jonathan Robbins, who was
also accused of violating the law. Cooper declared the law to be "...without
precedent, without law and against mercy." Cooper received no mercy.
He was also sentenced to four months, and his home, lands and property
were seized to satisfy the $1,000 fine.

When the fourth lawbreaker, James
T. Callender was hauled into the Supreme Court and faced Justice Chase,
his lawyers raised the question of the legality of the law, which
obviously violated the Bill of Rights. Chase refused to listen to
their legal argument and threw out the briefs they had filed with
the court, chastising the lawyers for bringing such a pathetic argument
into court. They left the courthouse in disgust, leaving their client
to the mercy of Chase. Chase showed none. Four months and $1,000.

A highly respected New York jurist,
Judge Jared Peck distributed a petition to force Congress to redress
such an unconstitutional law. He collected hundreds of signatures.
As he was collecting his signatures, a secret grand jury in New York
indicted him for sedition. A bench warrant was issued for his arrest.
Police officers came to his home during a family gathering and arrested
him. That was a mistake for the Adams Administration. Peck was one
of the most respected jurists in America. The spectacle of his arrest
raised the hackle of every American and the media fought back. It
was because of the arrest and conviction of Peck that the Kentucky
and Virginia Resolves were written, crushing for over 100 years the
attempts of the federal government to subjugate the citizens of the
United States with laws that violate the Constitution and the Bill
of Rights. (Excerpts [above] from the soon-to-be-published DESTINY
DENIED by Jon Christian Ryter.)

More important, the Kentucky and
Virginia Resolves took the federal government to task. James Madison,
who authored the Virginia Resolve reminded the central government
the States had surrendered only a portion of their power to the federal
government and that, whenever the federal government usurped its authority,
the States would interfere and take that power back. The Kentucky
Resolve went a step farther and said that the States retained the
power to nullify any federal law; and that the Resolves did, in fact,
when delivered to the Congress, nullify the Aliens and Sedition Act.
When Jefferson was elected, he released from prison all those charged
under the Aliens and Sedition Act. By that constitutional legal precedent,
the States may enact a Resolve to nullify any federal law they feel
exceeds the authority they gave the federal government.

The impact of the Aliens and Sedition
Act on the American people was earth-shattering. Adams lost his bid
for re-election in 1800. Thomas Jefferson, who served as Adam's vice
president, ran as a States-right Democratic-Republican. After 1802,
no Federalist candidate would ever be elected. The Aliens and Sedition
Act became a stigma that destroyed that political party. In 1804 Thomas
Pinckney ran as a Federalist against Jefferson and received 14 electoral
votes to Jefferson's 162. The last candidate to run as a Federalist
was Rufus King who ran against James Monroe. King took 34 electoral
votes against 183 for Monroe. When John Quincy Adams (the son of the
second president) ran against Monroe four years later, Adams took
only one electoral vote and lost in the biggest landslide in the history
of American politics. Those who shed their blood that their children
could live in freedom and without fear of their government discovered
that politicians cannot be trusted. And, as they did in 1800, Americans
learned early (although of late we've forgotten) that, when the rascals
attempt to steal liberty from the people, it is time to not only turn
them out of office, but to erase their political parties from existence.

Even though he was a Federalist,
Adams ran in 1820 as an Independent. But, he didn't fool anyone. Adams
was a Federalist from birth, and everyone knew it. John Quincy Adams,
like his father, was doomed to be a one-term president. (It is important
to remember that the people of the United States did not elect Adams
in 1824 when he became president. The people wanted States-right war
hero Andy Jackson. With four major candidates running in 1824, Jackson
pulled 99 electoral votes--about a dozen short for victory. The election
was thrown into the House of Representatives where Henry Clay, who
pulled the least amount of the popular vote--threw his support behind
Adams on the promise that Adams would name him Secretary of State.
Jackson won the popular vote of 11 states, but only seven cast their
votes for him in the House vote.) Hopefully, our current president,
George W. Bush is taking a primer on history right now. If he isn't,
the Bush family will repeat the history of the Adams family.

The Federalist Party died because
its caretakers chose to ignore the Constitution of the United States
and enact laws that violated the Bill of Rights and made the citizens
of the United States enemies of its government. Which brings us to
the present...

In 1995, in the aftermath of the
terrorist act that brought down the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma
City, Congress enacted the Comprehensive Anti-Terrorist Act of 1995.
Within days of the tragedy, anti-terrorist legislation, S.735, zipped
through the U.S. Senate at breakneck speed--without any public scrutiny
to what was in the bill. The 187 victims of the Murrah tragedy had
barely been laid to rest when its companion bill, HR 666 was headed
for a floor vote in the House of Representatives. The New York Times
and Washington Post trumpeted the Comprehensive Anti-Terrorist Act
as a necessary evil that would provide Americans with an added measure
of security against both domestic and foreign terrorists. When the
public learned what was in HR 666, the bill was scuttled. On March
7, 1996 HR 2703 would be the bill that passed. The Bill of Rights
abrogations were gone.

In the fall of 1995, GOP campaign
strategist Dick Morris (who had been hired by Clinton to outthink
the Republicans) Morris began conducting a series of surveys to determine
the likelihood of Clinton being re-elected. With the passage of the
Comprehensive Anti-Terrorist Act Clinton's popularity with everyone
except the agendized far left nose-dived. Morris called Clinton a
day or so before Christmas in 1995 and told the president if the 1996
election had been held that day, Clinton would have lost to Senate
Majority Leader Bob Dole (the presumptive nominee) by at least 16%.
The American people no longer trusted their president. (Of course,
the conservatives didn't ever trust the Clintons, but those were not
the people Morris had been polling. Morris was polling the Democratic
factory worker swing votes in the political center who actually determine
who gets elected.) The card-carrying union factory worker no longer
trusted Clinton because he was trying to violate their liberty. Had
HR 666 been enacted, Bill Clinton would have become a one term president
just like John Adams who violated the Bill of Rights with the Aliens
and Sedition Act.

HR 666, had it passed in the House,
would have legislatively abrogated freedom of religion, freedom of
speech, the right to petition and, under extraneous circumstances,
freedom of the press. It would have eliminated the right of American
citizens to own or possess firearms. The Posse Comitatus Act would
have been eliminated as the American government would have been allowed
to use military troops to assist local police (something this government,
for good reason, has not been allowed to do since the Civil War when
soldiers arrested suspected seditionists and denied them due process
under the Bill of Rights). The right from unreasonable search--and
seizure--would be eliminated. Gone would have been right of habeus
corpus. Also gone would have been the 5th Amendment guarantees of
due process, and the 6th Amendment right to face your accuser. Authorities
would have the right to hold you without charges, or without trial,
as long as they wanted to. And, finally, the 10th Amendment would
be legislatively abolished, giving the federal government total dictatorial
power over every aspect of life in America during times of national
emergency.

When the American people discovered
what totalitarian "safeguards" awaited them in HR 666, there was an
outcry heard around the world. An uncommon alliance was formed between
the far left and the far right that conjoined the American Civil Liberties
Union and the American Conservative Union like Siamese twins to fight
what each viewed as a common evil. That union is still firmly yoked
as the left and right now fight Attorney General John Ashcroft's USA
Patriot Act.

Since the passage of the USA Patriot
Act in October, 2001, Bush's popularity has continued to erode. The
nationalistic far right, which generally backs neo-conservatives like
Pat Buchanan (or folk heroes like Judge Roy Moore) sees Bush and his
9th cousin-twice-removed, John F. Kerry, as two peas in the same pod--secret
members of Skull & Bones who are trying to crush resistance to the
New World Order by vacating the Bill of Rights in order to stifle
dissent. As you move closer to the centrist constitutional right,
there is a growing apprehension that President Bush crossed the line
when he signed the Patriot Act into law, unconstitutionally infringing
on the Bill of Rights. Conservative constitutional activists are frightened
by Bush because of Attorney General John Ashcroft's disregard for
the Bill of the Rights. An American citizen who is, admittedly an
Al Qaeda-trained Islamic terrorist, Jose Padilla has been held without
charges for over two years. Padilla is believed to have been trying
to create a radiological dirty bomb that he planned to explode in
a populated area like San Francisco or Los Angeles. Yet, he has never
been charged. Several natural and naturalized citizens, who should
be protected by the umbrella of the Bill of Rights, have been arrested
and detained without regard for their rights.

There is growing fear among activists
on both the right and the left that the USA Patriot Act could be used
to stifle constitutional free speech in a variety of ways. While that
is likely not the case, it is the fear, not the reality, that generates
distrust. Since American citizens with suspected ties to al Qaeda
have, since 9-11-01, been surreptitiously arrested and incarcerated
without due process, Americans know the possibility exists that any
dissident can be arrested. It was this same fear, in 1804, that made
John Adams a one-term president. And it was that same fear that made
being a Federalist akin to being a leper.

Will the USA Patriot Act end the
presidency of George W. Bush? Will the USA Patriot Act bring about
the demise of the Republican Party? Stay tuned. The conclusion of
this drama is only eight months away.

Jon Christian Ryter is the pseudonym of a former
newspaper reporter with the Parkersburg, WV Sentinel. He authored a syndicated
newspaper column, Answers From The Bible, from the mid-1970s until 1985.
Answers From The Bible was read weekly in many suburban markets in the United
States.

Today, Jon is an advertising executive with
the Washington Times. His website, www.jonchristianryter.com
has helped him establish a network of mid-to senior-level Washington insiders
who now provide him with a steady stream of material for use both in his
books and in the investigative reports that are found on his website.
E-Mail: baffauthor@aol.com

"To understand why conservative
America has lost faith in George W. Bush it is necessary to peel back
the layers of our history to 1802 and look at the reason why colonial
America lost faith in John Adams and the Federalist Party"